Tag Archives: school travel

The RFID Journal reports that a company in California, Iotera, is developing a 900MHz RFID tag that has a 4 mile range and that “a school district will use it to track students arriving on campus or traveling to and from school“. Rather than just being able to track students on campus this new geographical tracking takes tagging children one step further.
Iotera have visions of smart cities with the Internet of Things (IoT) long-range “sensors to increase safety and efficiency” – in this company’s eyes this involves tagging humans.

The figures on how dangerous it is for children attending school are unknown but it seems that participating in the activity of schooling is relatively safe otherwise why would governments insist children attend school and parents willingly send them? There is inherent risk in all activities humans do and carrying RFID chips, emitting frequencies that have unquantifiable health effects and “smart”ing cities up, bathing us all in electrosmog does not sound any safer than the situation we have now – where children are free of RFID tags.

With the possible risk to health of carrying emitting RFID and the added risk of other people tracking RFID tags that children carry, by hacking into their RFID emitting signal, the “increase safety” that Iotera claim is disputable.

But yet again we see the next generation via school being conditioned to use technology and be advised it is for their safety/convenience and learn that it is perfecting acceptable for others to track their whereabouts. Apart from the risks mentioned above associated with carrying RFID technology, a recent article by Slyck News “Student Monitoring by Schools, is it Really Necessary or Far Too Controlling?” addresses the glaring privacy issues that surveilling the next generation raises.

With companies gearing up for the Internet of Things another company DecaWave also are preparing themselves with ultra wideband (UWB) RFID chips to monitor humans, stating that “children and infirm adults will be monitored for their safety and security“. Their website goes on to say: “And in the future, DecaWave’s chip will be incorporated into cell phones, tablets, and other mobile devices not yet thought of, to interact with our surroundings in ways not yet imagined.”

Many will embrace this ubiquitous living as convenient but as our privacy quickly becomes eroded so does the erosion of any form of freedom to protest against corrupt systems. Do we have a right to refuse to use or would our anomalous behaviour flag us up non compliant citizens?

Over the summer break some schools in the US have treated themselves to RFID location systems, one school district seems to have excelled itself in the level of intrusion of it’s students while other schools it seems are only tagging staff with RFID using the school’s existing wifi.

Here in the UK we had one college, West Cheshire College, that looked at using active RFID over it’s existing wifi to track students, staff and assets but found that using an ultra wideband RFID, tagging 5,500 students, saved them $400,000 – $600,000 – that’s a lot of money. However wifi based RFID is being used in the US to track staff, not students yet, at very aptly named schools called Skyview and Grandview. A third school to use the active RFID using wifi is Patrick Henry School in Virginia. Patrick Henry was a brilliant orator and a major figure of the American Revolution – best known for his quote “Give me liberty or give me death“.

Liberty – the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s behaviour or political views.

Is liberty compromised by RFID tagging and tracking humans, in this case children, with authority knowing your every move, behaviors and peer group association? In the case of Belleville Public School District in New Jersey it seems liberty certainly may be compromised here. As reported in the RFID Journal the school district is “implementing an active radio frequency identification [RFID] solution to locate students and faculty members within its schools, as well as students on its 21 buses… cameras with built-in analytic software, and a new phone system—as well as the posting of armed officers and a new director of security”. Is is that dangerous being at school? That sort of security is only afforded to inmates in prison but the technology in prisons is in place to stop people from getting out whereas at school it is there to stop people from getting in (with a massive added bonus of vast data harvesting).

Is it worth sacrificing privacy and liberty for this perceived improvement of safety as the above examples in the US cite? And at what point does society put it’s foot down and say enough, we need our privacy. It is doubtful the next generation will do that, being normalised to this high level of surveillance from school.

A school district in Northern California is to start tracking children on and off schools buses via RFID and GPS technology. The system is free to the district, taxpayers and parents with local businesses sponsoring the messages sent to parents phones to tell them their child is safe at school.

According to ECDC this tracking of children “creates a unique opportunity for businesses to demonstrate a policy of corporate responsibility toward student safety in communities they do business with“. Advertisers can engage “the brand loyalty of parents out of appreciation for receiving safety notification regarding their children.”

This just sounds bizarre. What shop would want to sponsor tracking a child? Eroding that child’s privacy. Are society’s ethics and morals to be discarded for “corporate responsibility” – trading safety messages about location tracking of our children in exchange to be advertised at? Do we not trust the bus driver, schools and society to show a collective care for our youngest?

Yes, there are random acts of violence that defy logic or reason but when statistics are scrutinized both from the industry selling this technology and real risks that do exist, possible perceived scenarios – that involve compromising children rights more than they do protecting their safety – arise offering a financial solution to a situation that is not that urgent and disproportionate to the reported transport crisis.

There is money to be made in tracking children, that is for sure.

“Good morning. Your child has arrived safely at school. Oh, and by the way, your local hardware shop is offering 99% off sledge hammers to a crack nut with”

We should have more faith in society to care for our children collectively. All members of society, community, family, corporate, faith based, all aspects should care for all. We should not rely on a money driven system to take responsibility for our children, nor be led into believing that that is where responsibility lies.

Surely as a society, whatever country or community you live in, we should all take a part in looking out for each other and not be driven in this supposed care for our children from a financial incentive.

Apparently Andrej Jeremic, Director of Marketing and Business Development at East Coast Diversified the company that owns StudentConnect, stated that their system using RFID and GPS, “is not a tracking device” “…it is a notification system”.

Yes Andrej, it is a notification system that notifies you of students tracks traveling on school buses (face palm!)

Even his own website states in the document ‘StudentConnect Market Research’ it states “Parents can track all of their children’s activities”

Oddly enough, this ‘StudentConnect Market Research‘ document is research that another employee Kayode Aladesuyi, East Coast Diversified’s Chairman and Chief Officer, claims is an “independent research study” showing that 96% of parents would support a safety program that requires students to wear an auto ID badge.

There does not appear to be cited within the document any independent research company that carried out the survey. The survey deployed 13,573 surveys with only 958 returned – that’s only 7% of people asked bothered to reply – perhaps the replies were from people who were positive about the technology?

Sadly, apart from children’s privacy and civil liberties being eroded, there seems an air of shabbiness along with a distinct hint of desperateness to sell us this type of tracking by remote ubiquitous technology that involves a lack of integrity and transparency.

Article – Biometrics and RFID tracking in UK Education

Documenting the rise of biometric and RFID technology used in education

Book – Surveillance Schools

With the growth of surveillance technologies globally, Dr Emmeline Taylor focuses on the phenomenon of the Surveillance School and explores the impact that continual monitoring is having upon school children, education and society.

433MHz military capabilities of tracking students

Interview with Katherine Albrecht, technology and privacy in schools

Katherine Albrecht show - July 2013. Katherine and Pippa King discuss the victories in removing or preventing biometric and other tracking systems from being used on our children.